Data of self-reliance and shared future: China Daily editorial

If globalization once looked like a seamless web, China's 2025 statistical communique would read like the blueprint of a nation steadfastly reinforcing its own corner of that web — increasing bandwidth, rerouting circuits and installing backup generators in anticipation of a stormier world. The latest scorecard from the world's second-largest economy is a dense ledger of hedging: a major country recalibrating its exposure to an unpredictable global system.

That China's economy expanded 5 percent last year, pushing output beyond 140 trillion yuan ($20.4 trillion), is a hard-earned result. At this scale, that growth adds more than 5 trillion yuan in new output, an increment larger than the annual economy of many G20 economies. The more revealing shift, however, lies in the growth's composition. About 67.3 percent of growth came from domestic demand, with consumption contributing 52 percent. Retail sales surpassed 50 trillion yuan, and express deliveries exceeded 190 billion parcels, signaling an effective effort to construct an economy that can better resist external shocks.

By cultivating a consumption-driven model that reduces dependence on export markets vulnerable to tariffs, sanctions and geopolitical whims, while stressing on high-standard opening-up, Chinese policymakers are further consolidating the fundamentals of the economy. The country's pragmatic policy portfolio is conducive to leveraging the global market to strengthen its internal economic system, while contributing to the common development of the world.

Innovation plays a central role in this pragmatic and balanced hedging policy. Research and development spending reached 2.8 percent of GDP, surpassing the OECD average for the first time, while high-tech manufacturing grew 9.4 percent year-on-year to account for 17.1 percent of industrial output.

The same logic applies to China's digital infrastructure build-out. By the end of 2025, the country had installed 4.84 million 5G base stations, achieved 80.1 percent internet penetration, and pushed online retail close to 16 trillion yuan. Digital ecosystems are the new trade routes of the global economy, shaping standards, steering data flows and redefining consumer behavior. While some Western policymakers frame technological competition in military terms, the more consequential contest may lie in the architecture of everyday commerce — payments, logistics, cloud services — where China is constructing reliable systems that boost overall economic efficiency.

China's green transition reflects a similar fusion of domestic necessity and global agenda. Clean energy accounted for 30.4 percent of consumption, carbon intensity fell 5 percent, and production of new energy vehicles exceeded 16 million units, maintaining a world-leading position for the 11th consecutive year. This is climate policy as industrial policy: by strengthening clean technology supply chains, China brings down the cost of the global energy transition.

Despite these inward fortifications, China remains deeply integrated into global trade. Its goods trade exceeded 45 trillion yuan, likely ranking first worldwide for the ninth consecutive year, while its service trade surpassed 8 trillion yuan. Trade with partners in the Belt and Road Initiative accounted for 51.9 percent of total imports and exports, underscoring a diversification strategy aimed at reducing reliance on some Western markets. China is redirecting flows toward emerging markets and infrastructure corridors where its engagement is structural.

Underlying these economic shifts is a focus on social stability that remains central to China's development. Urban unemployment averaged 5.2 percent, with 12.67 million new urban jobs created. Pension coverage reached 1.08 billion people, and medical insurance covered 1.33 billion. These figures reveal a people-first country investing heavily in public services and social fairness and justice so that the development dividends can be materialized in the enhancement of people's livelihoods.

In a turbulent world, the 2025 statistical communique released by the National Bureau of Statistics on Saturday points to China's efforts to realize a future defined not by "decoupling" or bloc confrontation, but by joint efforts among countries to build an equal and orderly multipolar world and universally beneficial and inclusive economic globalization.